I think your second paragraph is just glossing over the problem and is a variation of ‘the perfect market’ myth. There is, indeed, an ‘anomaly’ – the people who are producing the goods and service are not receiving a fair return for their input and have a powerlessly precarious position within the company. The ‘fast correction’ is usually the extraction of large amounts of capital and transferring them overseas, without investing to grow the business. The ‘fast correction’ is usually lay-offs, outsourcing and transfers of the business to different countries.

With regard to ‘Capitalism’ it is a human construct: it does not say anything. It is a system operated by people and many of the most powerful people within it routinely rig the market in their favour. They are, indeed, ‘greedy’, and they do say it is ‘good’, because it is good for them and they have little sentiment for others.

Much of the preliminary and exploratory work for processes are usually done in government funded research facilities, either stand-alone or in universities, such as Glasgow University’s Science Park just along the road from where I am now of Ninewells Hospital in Dundee (an NHS Scotland facility) There are contributions from businesses, often quite substantial. However, it is the public purse which is bearing the bulk of the risk and it is also the public purse which has paid for the education of the workforce, the transport and utilities infrastructure. When ideas become viable, there are then spin-off companies from these university research facilities. A good example is the computer gaming industry around Abertay University in Dundee.

Finally, some private entrepreneurs are indeed gambling with their own money as my father often did, fruitlessly, on nags at Ayr or Ascot or Kempton Park! However, as we saw with the financial crash, it was the public purse which bore the cost. As Mr Mervyn King warned with his euphemistic phrase, moral hazard, the speculators had their hand around the government’s testicles and were threatening to squeeze.

But when there are returns above 10% it normally means there is some anomaly that should be corrected, and the high returns stimulate fast correction and thus are good.

The role of Greed is another question. You can have an economic system that depends on people not being greedy, e.g. Socialism, or you can have one that recognises that people in fact are greedy and nonetheless obtains good results. Capitalism doesn’t depend on greed or say it’s good, it just is a system that can work even when people are greedy.

As for civil servants picking winners, there are countless examples – such as Concorde – of they’re being a dismal failure. Yes, capitalists make mistakes too, but it’s with their money not ours.

I am not against investment and over the centuries there have been many ethical investing approaches, which have encouraged wide share ownership and modest, but reasonable returns. Employees, who are the people who actually produce the goods and services should be given a proper stake in the equity and be paid a good wage, which is not dissimilar from those in the enterprise who have greater responsibility.

The myth about ‘civil servants’ not being able ‘to pick winners’ is a myth. It has been public investment which has provided the seed corn which the privatisers flogged off, just as they did with natural monopolies like water (in England and Wales).

There are many examples in the ‘first world’ where there is substantial public ownership and employee share ownership, with representation at board level via trade unions and other elected representatives.